Captain Emmanuel Delran first met the late Jacques Saade 25 years ago. He was looking for a job as a young seafaring cadet at the time, but was unaware he was talking to the founder of France’s leading liner company.
Today, the 47-year-old Frenchman has been given command of the 23,000-teu CMA CGM Jacques Saade (built 2020) — the flagship of the fleet.
The vessel is the first in a series of the world’s largest LNG-powered containerships. It has been under Delran’s command following delivery in Shanghai on 22 September, when it began making its way to Europe.
Delran modestly attributed being handed the prestigious position as a result of “luck, hard work, and luck again”.
He prepared for the role by training on one of the French carrier’s smaller LNG-powered ships in the North Sea.
But that does not compare with the challenge of captaining the 218,000-dwt goliath that he now commands. “Just to make a U-turn, I need at least 40 minutes,” he said.
TradeWinds boarded the giant vessel on 4 November after it docked at DP World’s container facilities in the UK’s southern port of Southampton.
Waiting for gas
Until now, the vessel has operated purely on marine fuel oil, due to a dearth of LNG supplies in other ports. However, the fuelling situation will change shortly when it arrives in Rotterdam.
Delran said the ship will spend 90 hours loading LNG into bunkers. The job will be performed by Total Marine Fuels Global Solutions, using its 18,600-cbm, chartered LNG bunker vessel newbuilding Gas Agility (built 2020).
From there, the CMA CGM Jacques Saade will operate wholly on LNG. It will have enough fuel to make the 84-day round trip voyages from Europe to Asia on the French Asia line, where CMA CGM operates as part of Ocean Alliance.
‘Everyone will follow’
Delran described his employer’s shift to LNG fuel as “a first step to the future”.
“We are the first,” he said. “Now you can bet everyone will follow.”
He noted the efficient design of the vessel, including a straight bow.
Other features include embedded digital technologies in the cockpit that assist the commander and crew, particularly for port manoeuvres.
Despite its size, filling the vessel is not currently a problem, thanks to an unexpected surge in exports from Asia to Europe, according to CMA CGM (UK) chief executive Gary Jeffreys.
Unprecedented demand
“What we’ve seen after [the] Covid lockdown is an unprecedented demand for imports,” he said. “Consumer spending has gone beyond any demand that we could have expected.”
CMA CGM claims the record for the most containers loaded after 20,723 full boxes were loaded on board the CMA CGM Jacques Saade when it left Singapore.
Jeffreys conceded that there are challenges in getting empty containers back to Asia.
But he pointed to the decks of the vessel — the size of four football pitches — to indicate that space will be found for exports.
The CMA CGM Jacques Saade is the first in a series of nine LNG-powered ships.
The second vessel — the 23,000-teu CMA CGM Champs Elysees (built 2020) — was delivered from CSSC Group’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) in October.
They will be part of a fleet of 20 LNG-powered vessels that the company plans to operate by 2022, including five 15,000-teu units and six 1,400-teu ships.
“It’s going to be an evolution [to LNG], but customers are quite engaged in this,” Jeffreys said.
He added that shippers are keen to make their cargoes environmentally friendly. “This can only help them with their footprint.”
